IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
14, 2015
A Compact Koch Fractal UWB MIMO Antenna With
WLAN Band-Rejection
Shrivishal Tripathi, Student Member, IEEE, Akhilesh Mohan, Member, IEEE, and Sandeep Yadav, Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this letter, a compact octagonal shaped fractal
ultrawideband multiple-input–multiple-output antenna is pre-
sented, and its characteristics are investigated. In order to achieve
the desired miniaturization and wideband phenomena, self-sim-
ilar and space filling properties of Koch fractal geometry are
used in the antenna design. These fractal monopoles are placed
orthogonal to each other for good isolation. Moreover, grounded
stubs are used in the geometry to provide further improvement
in the isolation. The band rejection phenomenon in wireless local
area network band is achieved by etching a C-shaped slot from
the monopole of the antenna. The proposed antenna has compact
dimensions of mm mm and exhibits quasi-omnidi-
rectional radiation pattern. In addition, it shows an impedance
bandwidth ( dB) from 2 to 10.6 GHz with isolation
better than 17 dB over the entire ultra-wideband range. Diversity
performance is also evaluated in terms of envelope correlation
coefficient and capacity loss. The measured results show good
agreement with the simulated ones.
Index Terms—Band-rejection, fractal geometry, Koch, multiple-
input–multiple-output (MIMO) antenna, ultra-wideband (UWB)
antenna, wireless local area network (WLAN).
I. INTRODUCTION
I N WIRELESS communication system, the use of mul-
tiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) technology at trans-
mitter and receiver terminals, to enhance the data transmission
capacity and to reduce the multipath fading, has attracted
the attention of researchers from academia and industries
recently [1]. In order to realize the high data transmission
capacity as well as to overcome the multipath fading limitation
of short distance communication, MIMO is combined with
ultra-wideband (UWB) technology [2]. UWB technology
provides several advantages in short range communication
such as high data transmission rate at low power and ease in
fabrication. UWB technology enables wireless connectivity
among portable devices like computers, digital cameras, and
printers [3]. Several UWB antennas using MIMO techniques
are presented in [4] and [5].
However, UWB systems face electromagnetic interference
in the UWB band with existing narrowband communication
system such as IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network
Manuscript received December 11, 2014; revised January 27, 2015 and Feb-
ruary 18, 2015; accepted February 23, 2015. Date of publication March 12,
2015; date of current version August 06, 2015.
S. Tripathi and S. Yadav are with the IIT Jodhpur, Jodhpur 342011, India
(e-mail: shrivishal@iitj.ac.in; sy@iitj.ac.in)
A. Mohan is with the IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India (e-mail:
am@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2015.2412659
1536-1225 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SILCHAR. Downloaded on December 26,2021 at 04:17:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1565
(WLAN) from 5.15 to 5.85 GHz. A number of design ap-
proaches are reported in [6]–[8]. Moreover, the application of
these techniques for band notch characteristics could cause
additional mutual coupling issue between radiating structures.
UWB antennas with band notch characteristics in WLAN band
are reported in [9] and [10]. However, the majority of the
antennas reported in [4]–[10] are UWB MIMO antenna
and did not enhance the quality of communication channel
significantly. On the other hand, UWB MIMO antennas
are reported in [11] and [12]. The dimensions of the antenna
presented in [11] are very large, whereas [12] does not have
the band notch characteristics. Hence, the design of a compact
UWB MIMO antenna with band rejection and low mutual
coupling in a given smaller area for portable electronic devices
is very challenging task.
The application of fractal geometry provides desired minia-
turization and wideband phenomena in antenna design due
to its self-similar and space filling properties [13]–[15]. The
space filling property helps to enhance the effective electrical
path length of the antenna in a given smaller area [13], [14].
A number of fractal geometries such as Koch snowflake [14],
hexagonal shaped [13], and Sierpinski triangle [13], [14] are
used to design UWB antenna.
In this letter, a compact octagonal shaped fractal
UWB MIMO antenna with WLAN band notch characteristics
is presented. The Koch fractal geometry is applied at the edges
of the octagonal monopole. The presented antenna shows
mutual coupling less than dB in the operating range from
2 to 10.6 GHz, which cover entire UWB operational range.
In addition, further enhancement in isolation is achieved by
placing a grounded stub among the antenna monopoles. In
order to achieve the notch band characteristics in WLAN band,
a C-shaped slot is etched from the fractal monopole (FM).
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
A. UWB MIMO Antenna Configuration
The optimized geometry of the proposed fractal UWB
MIMO antenna (FUMA) is shown in Fig. 1. It is fabricated on
FR4 substrate with dimension of mm mm mm,
dielectric constant of 4.4, and loss tangent of 0.02. The MIMO
system consists of four FMs, each one is fed by a microstrip line
of 50 . The ground plane is placed on the other side of the sub-
strate. The orthogonal orientation of adjacent antenna elements
helps to achieve better isolation among them [16]. To achieve
the miniaturization and wideband phenomena, Koch fractal ge-
ometry is applied at the edges of octagonal geometry. The iter-
ative generation of Koch geometry is shown in Fig. 2. The first
iteration divides the initial length in three equal parts and this
iterative process is repeated for higher-order iteration. Iteration
 1566
Fig. 1. Optimized geometry of the proposed 4×4 FUMA.
Fig. 2. Recursive generation of Koch structure. (a) Iteration-0. (b) Iteration-1.
(c) Iteration-2.
Fig. 3. Evolution of the fractal monopole of antenna structure with the ap-
plication of Koch geometry at the edges of Octagonal geometry. (a) Initiator.
(b) After first iteration. (c) After second iteration.
Fig. 4. Return loss variation of the antennas shown in Fig. 3.
wise application of Koch geometry at the edges of octagonal
geometry is shown in Fig. 3. Here, the octagonal shape work
as an initiator and Koch geometry work as a generator in the
evolution of FM of the antenna. Iteration wise return loss vari-
ation of the antenna is displayed in Fig. 4. It is evident from
Fig. 4 that addition of Koch geometry with octagonal monopole
increases the electrical path length. The lower operating fre-
quency shifted slightly towards lower band edge of UWB with
the increase in the iteration of Koch geometry. These modifi-
cations in the geometry improve the characteristics in the
UWB spectrum. The fractal geometry generates multiple res-
onances and by combining these resonances wideband band-
width is achieved. Furthermore, a rectangular slot of dimensions
is introduced in the ground plane below the feed line,
which in turn leads to increase the current path and helps to
achieve the desired UWB band. In our design, octagonal shaped
geometry is preferred over conventional circular geometry due
to two reasons. First, circular shape geometry is close to octag-
onal shape geometry in terms of circumference and area. This
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 14, 2015
Fig. 5. Simulated -parameters variation of proposed FUMA (a) with and
without ground stub and (b) , , and with and without ground stub.
type of geometry also shows wideband phenomena. Secondly, it
provides the edges where fractal geometry can be incorporated,
which helps to increase the circumference of the geometry sig-
nificantly with the increase in iterations in a given smaller area
compared to the other geometries such as circular, elliptical, and
hexagonal. Moreover, for polygon of order higher than eight,
with second order fractal Koch geometry applied at its edges,
it will require higher level of fabrication accuracy. This will in-
crease the fabrication cost of the device.
To reduce the mutual coupling rectangular grounded stubs
are placed among antenna elements, which act as a reflector.
In addition, to achieve band notch characteristics in WLAN
band a C-shaped slot is etched from FMs because of its good
narrow-band rejection characteristics. The optimization and de-
signing of proposed FUMA is carried out using HFSS v.13.
The optimized dimensions are: mm, mm,
mm, , mm, mm,
mm, mm, mm, mm,
mm, mm, mm, mm,
mm, mm, mm, mm,
mm, and mm.
B. Effect of Grounded Stubs
The proposed FUMA is composed of four FMs, there is
strong mutual coupling among the antenna elements when they
are close to each other, which in turn leads to poor isolation of
12 dB at the edges of UWB band. Hence, the grounded stubs
are introduced in the geometry to enhance the isolation. Thus,
to get more insight into the effect of grounded stubs, with and
without in terms of -parameters variation, are carried out
as shown in Fig. 5. It is observed from Fig. 5(a) that ground
stub helps to improve operating bandwidth at low and high
frequency significantly due to increment in the current path.
Besides, an isolation of more than 15 dB is required for good
antenna performance [5], [9]. Fig. 5(b) shows that all three
parameters , , and isolation responses are better than
17 dB after introduction of stub in the geometry.
Fig. 6 shows that the simulated current distribution with and
without ground stub at 3.9 GHz resonant frequency to further
study the behavior of the FUMA. When port 1 is excited and
other ports 2, 3, and 4 are terminated with 50- load, it is ob-
served that flow of current from port 1 to other port is reduced
significantly, because stub work as a reflector and prevent the
coupling of electromagnetic energy among FMs. However, due
to symmetry only port 1 response is shown and other port re-
sponse is omitted.
Effect of C-Shaped Slot: The band rejection characteristics at
WLAN (5.15–5.85 GHz) band is achieved by etching C-shaped
 TRIPATHI et al.: COMPACT KOCH FRACTAL UWB MIMO ANTENNA WITH WLAN BAND-REJECTION
Fig. 6. Simulated surface current distribution at 3.9 GHz when port 1 is excited
(a) without stub and (b) with stub.
Fig. 7. Simulated surface current distribution at 5.5 GHz notch frequency when
port 1 is excited and port 2, 3, and 4 are terminated with 50- load.
Fig. 8. Photograph of the fabricated FUMA. (a) Front view. (b) Rear view.
slots from FMs. The length of the slot is estimated by mathe-
matical formula
(1)
where is speed of light, is the effective dielectric constant
as calculated in [17], is center notch frequency, is the
length of the slot, and , , and are design parameters.
The calculated length of the slot using (1) is 16.2 mm, whereas
actual length of slot is 16.8 mm, it is very close to the calculated
length. The simulated surface current distribution of antenna at
notch frequency with and without stub is shown in Fig. 7. As it
can be seen, that the current intensity is higher at the inner and
the outer edges of C-shaped slot in FM compared to other parts
of the FM in both the cases. This leads to high suppression of
radiation characteristics at the notch frequency, which in turn
reduces the gain of the antenna at WLAN notch band.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Impedance Bandwidth
The proposed FUMA is fabricated and its bandwidth perfor-
mance is measured by using Agilent E5071C vector network
analyzer (VNA). Fig. 8 shows the fabricated photograph of the
FUMA. The simulated and measured -parameters of the an-
tenna are represented in Fig. 9. The simulated and measured
results of only , , , and are discussed because
of symmetrical arrangement of antenna elements in the struc-
ture. It is seen from Fig. 9(a) that, the measured operating band-
width is from 3 to 10.6 GHz excluding 5.5 GHz notch band.
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1567
Fig. 9. Comparison of simulated and measured -parameters result (a) and
(b) , , and .
Fig. 10. Radiation characteristics of the UWB MIMO antenna when port 1 is
excited and other ports are terminated with load. (a) -plane. (b) -plane.
Fig. 11. Measured gain of the proposed FUMA.
However, some discrepancies are observed because of fabrica-
tion tolerances, soldering and losses due to SMA connectors.
Fig. 9(b) shows that the mutual coupling is below dB for
most of the band, excluding lower and higher operating edges
of UWB band, where its value is dB. The measured results
are in good agreement with simulated one.
B. Radiation Characteristics
Fig. 10 shows the measured radiation pattern of FUMA at 3.9,
6.7, and 10 GHz resonant frequencies, when port 1 is excited and
other ports 2, 3, and 4 are terminated by a load. It can be
observed that radiation pattern in -plane ( -plane) is directed
more towards directions, whereas in -plane ( -plane) is
quasi-omnidirectional. The cross-polarization value increases
with the increase in the resonant frequency. Moreover, bends
and curves of Koch fractal geometry cause for the change in cur-
rent path, which helps to enhance the radiation characteristics of
the antenna [17]. This enhancement in radiation characteristics
helps to improve the gain of the antenna. Fig. 11 shows the mea-
sured gain of the proposed FUMA. The gain response is within
3 dB variation range excluding WLAN notch band, when port 1
is excited and other ports are matched to 50- loads. Further-
more, a significant reduction in gain response is observed in the
notch band.
 1568
Fig. 12. Capacity loss and ECC of the proposed FUMA.
C. Diversity Performance
The diversity performance of MIMO antenna is characterized
in terms of envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) as shown in
Fig. 12. In uniform propagation environment, ECC is calculated
using -parameters [18]
Normally, the value of ECC, less than 0.5 represents accepted
threshold level of signal distortion [19]. The ECC value of pro-
posed FUMA is below 0.005 across the entire UWB operating
band due to effectiveness of the presented FUMA. Similarly,
in a rich multipath environment capacity loss (b/s/Hz) is esti-
mated to define the upper bound of rate of transmission for re-
liable transmission in a communication channel. In the case of
a MIMO antenna, its accepted value should be less than
0.4 b/s/Hz [20], [21], and calculated using the correlation ma-
trix as given in [21]
where is the correlation matrix of the receiving antenna and
is expressed mathematically as
for or
Fig. 12 shows the capacity loss changes with the variation of
frequencies. It can be seen that the capacity loss values are al-
ways less than 0.3 b/s/Hz in the UWB operating range, except
for WLAN notch band, where it is more than the threshold value
of 0.4 b/s/Hz.
IV. CONCLUSION
A compact fractal UWB MIMO antenna with WLAN band-
notched characteristics is presented in this letter. The appli-
cation of Koch geometry provides miniaturization and wide-
band phenomena. The grounded stubs help to achieve the iso-
lation of better than 17 dB in the UWB band among orthog-
onally placed fractal antennas. The band rejection at 5.5 GHz
notch band is obtained by etching a C-shaped slot from the
FMs of antenna structure. The proposed antenna has compact
dimensions of mm mm. The diversity performance
is less than 0.1 b/s/Hz and 0.003 for capacity loss and ECC,
respectively. All these show that the antenna has good pulse
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 14, 2015
preserving capability. This design approach provides a solution
for wideband compact antenna with good antenna characteris-
tics. Thus, the proposed antenna can be considered for wireless
device applications.
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